Up and Down Wall Street

Adding Up the Zeros

Bush speaks and the market drops. But it isn't his fault. Setting up for an October surprise?

There he goes again. To paraphrase the gipper, there went President Bush giving a speech last Thursday, and there went the stock market tumbling. Of course, this wasn't as bad as the last time he came to New York to make a major address, when his attempt to bolster investor confidence only seemed to grease the market's July skid.

Truth to tell, to blame the president for Thursday's 200-point plunge in the Dow Industrials is a bum rap. If anything, Bush's call on the United Nations to actually enforce its resolutions on...